Candace Nicol’s smile disarms and nutrifies. Being in the presence of the gifted and prolific printmaker one is immediately enthralled by her passion for her art and voracious curiosity. (I found capsulating Nicol to be nearly impossible, requiring a serialized study on her philosophy, training, process, techniques and materials, which this publication will print over a series of special features on the Mount Rose based artist.)
Her cape must have been in the cleaners, but Nicol’s skill sets would make the X-Men blush. The Truckee Community College Instructor, mother of teen daughters, visual arts innovator and iconoclast received her Master’s of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Boise State University. Her Masters Thesis was titled Postures and Parts: Composing The Male Nude. In the introduction, there’s a passage by poet Audre Lord that aptly sums up Nicol’s view of our society’s repressed sexual expression:
“…she spoke of sexual phobias as being ‘the real conditions of all our lives in this place and time.’ She urged ‘each of us to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives there. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.’”
Nicol’s range of mediums seems endless. Like Ray Johnson, she sees art hidden in plane in the processes of our interactions. In her 2008 invitation to participate in the collaborative 6 Sides 2 Every Story project, Nicol writes:
“As humans, we have the incredible ability to perceive the same events as completely different happenings. This collaboration project will give consideration to these individuals point of views. Participants are asked to illustrate their own individual perspectives by carving one side of a wooden cube. Each cube will represent one current issue found in a national/international article, internet posting or magazine. This project will expand across the United States, starting with 100 (2” x 2” x 2”) cubes, 600 participants.
http://www.renotahoetonight.com/artist-candace-nicol/
Photo credit: Dana Nolsch
